Watched a documentary about the (now legendary) football games between the national teams of russia and Ukraine in 1998 and 1999. The sheer levels of imperialistic fascism the russians were displaying leading up to those games is just typical. And yes, both those games took place before putin came to power, russians have just always been like that.
Patches and pins "russian invasion of Ukraine 1998" were popular among the russian fans leading up to the first game in Kyiv:
The rhetoric in the russian media about Ukraine not really being a separate country intensified.
For the record, russia lost that game 3:2.
But all of this is nothing compared to the second game, in Moscow in 1999. Russia needed only to win in order to move on in the tournament. Ukraine could settle with a draw. And that is when the true madness unfolded.
Probably the best known episode was this headline in one of the biggest sports newspapers in russia:
You see, they had a player with the last name "Khokhlov". So, on the surface level, the headline says, "Kick, Khokhlov, save Russia!" However, if you read out the headline, it also says "Kick [slur word for Ukrainians], save russia!". The slogan is a paraphrase of one of the main slogans of the russian Black Hundreds (ultra-reactionary, ultra-nationalist pogromist monarchist movement in the russian empire in early 20th century), only in the original versions there was the slur for Jews there instead. The russians were very proud of that pun. It was everywhere at the time.
Vladimir Putin, who was the russian prime minister at the time, was present at the game. The way the russian commentators already went out of their way to keep singing his praises for no reason is a good indicator how russians tend to make a cult of personality around everyone who happens to be a figure of authority.
And then the game finished with a draw 1:1 after an unbeliavable goal by Andriy Shevchenko (and due to a mistake from russia's goalkeeper):
Putin got really upset. He stopped showing up at such sporting events for years after this.
The bus with the Ukrainian national team got attacked on its way to the stadium before the game (according to Shevchenko, russians threw bottles at it) and especially after the game (with all sorts of objects being thrown at it, from beer bottles to rocks).
Absolutely typical. And one of the clearest views of ruscism.
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